


Taxpayer Popcorn, or How To Catch Up In One Easy Step

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Sharing a Bed, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-26
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Danny sharing a bed and catching a clue</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taxpayer Popcorn, or How To Catch Up In One Easy Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegrrrl2002](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrrrl2002/gifts).



Danny's been on worse stakeouts. If he thinks about it, every stakeout's been worse than this, cramped hours in a car with weak, burned coffee as opposed to an expensive hotel room with a big bed and a view of the beach. "Nice," he says, dropping his duffel on one side of the bed as Steve drops his on the other. "Very nice."

Chin glances up from his laptop, gives Danny a look that he can't fathom – something between exasperated and amused. "Make yourselves comfortable," he says as Steve unzips his bag, pulls out his shave kit.

Danny narrows his eyes, shakes his head a little, a nonverbal _what's your deal?_ But Chin just quirks his mouth and goes back to whatever tech-savvy, stalker software thing it is he's doing, so Danny picks up the laminated TV channel guide and looks it over.

"I'm counting thirty-seven sports channels," he tells Steve. "Five are devoted to hockey."

Steve huffs a little, looking amused. "That'll help if you can't sleep," he offers, and heads off to the bathroom, probably to put his personal items in uniform lines at a precise distance from the faucet.

"We have ears," Chin says, putting the laptop down on the desk by the window and hitting the volume button until Danny can hear the soft tune the housekeeper's singing next door. "You want me to leave this running?"

"For now. But hey – " Danny rounds the bed, points at the laptop screen. "Show me how we turn it off. Later. We don't want to -- "

"Sure," Chin says, and there's that look again. "Although it's a one-way transmitter, so you don't have to worry that . . ." He trails off, one eyebrow raised.

". . . that?" Danny asks, not following.

Chin stares him down for a few seconds, then seems to let it go, shakes his head. "Okay, here – this drop-down. This button."

"I got HPD stationed at all four parking lot exits," Kono says, breezing in from the hallway. "We'll take first watch, but – "

Steve comes out of the bathroom. "Hey. Can we have room service?"

"Right now?" Danny asks. "It's, like, four in the afternoon."

"No, no, I mean – later," Steve says with a grin. "I love room service."

"You and I will be in the bar later," Danny reminds him. "Following this jerk so as to be reasonably sure he doesn't do anything untoward to anyone, particularly not nice families, young women, or the people who work here. So, you know, everyone. You and me, we'll be keeping an eye on everyone, so no, no room service for you, Eloise." He can see the reference is wasted on Steve, and really, he has to get the man on bedtime story duty.

Steve tilts his head. "But after _that_ – "

"Yes, Steven," Danny says, sitting down in one of the very large armchairs the hotel has seen fit to provide for people paying ungodly amounts of money for a vacation. "After that you can come back here and order room service. I'll even let you eat in bed."

Kono makes a small choked noise and Chin clears his throat. The two of them, they're baffling, completely baffling, suffering, perhaps, from some sinister ear-nose-throat disease.

"Uh, boss? You sure this room is the best for what we're doing?" Kono asks. "Only I thought it was two queens, and there's the one king, and – "

Steve's too busy shaking out his nice white button-down to pay much attention. "It's fine," he says, crossing to the closet, making a recon of the iron and ironing board. "Connecting door – the other side doesn't have one, and Danny won't let me – "

"Once again," Danny says calmly. "You are not rappelling down from the balcony into the room."

"See?" Steve says, throwing his shirt on the bed and wrestling the ironing board into submission.

"Total killjoy," Kono nods, but she looks a little dazed. Maybe she ate something. Maybe they all ate something.

"Okay, all right," Danny says, clapping his hands and standing up. "Steven, you should iron my shirt, too; you – " and he points at Kono "and you," he points at Chin, "you have an appointment with a nap, some food, your car and a variety of technologies I do not understand. Next time, do not bet your poker hand on who pulls the hotel room, let this be a lesson."

Kono turns her head and looks at Chin with a perfectly blank expression that has Chin cracking up.

"We'll radio when we're in place," Chin says. "Make sure you have your phones."

"What are we, rookies?" Danny says. "Come on, out, out, work, we have work to do."

Steve tests the mister on the iron.

________

The jerk – current jerk; jerk of the day, Danny corrects himself – does nothing interesting in the bar. He makes small talk with the bartender, keeps an eye on the game, sips two something-amber-on-the-rocks, and stares off into space like half a dozen other guys who are probably nursing break-ups around the place. When he calls it a night, they follow him; when he goes in his room they go in theirs. Danny calls up Chin's software, listens to what's going on next door, but the guy's watching Sports Center at a perfectly reasonable volume – Danny can hear him brushing his teeth for god's sake. "This is a dud," he says, watching the readouts that chart the splash of water and the rattle of ice into a glass. "This guy's not planning anything."

"He's booked for three nights," Steve says, wandering past in his boxer shorts and nothing else. "Maybe he's just getting a feel for the place."

"Yeah, maybe," Danny says, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Do you have a personal best you're trying to beat? I mean, really, how long did it take you to get naked there, thirty seconds?"

Steve pokes his head out of the bathroom, his toothbrush in his mouth. "I'm not naked."

Danny nods; the man has a point. "Okay, so you're wearing the blue shorts, very nice. My point stands – they teach stripping in SEAL school, huh?"

Steve's face betrays nothing. "Classified," he says.

"Right," Danny snorts, and goes to root his own toothbrush out of his bag, unbuttoning his shirt.

They take turns listening to the guy on a giant set of headphones, sprawled in bed, propped up on a dozen pillows each. Steve orders room service but won't let the guy in the door, and Danny hopes he tips extra for all that government-funded hostility.

"Popcorn?" Danny says, pushing one side of the headphones back as Steve comes back in; he's not anxious to start shouting like Great-Aunt Rose. "You ordered popcorn?"

Steve munches happily, looking endlessly smug as he slides back between the sheets. "It's good."

"And how much is that popcorn costing the great Hawaiian tax payer?"

"I dunno, fifteen bucks or something."

" _Fifteen dollars?_ "

Steve gestures toward the laptop. "Ears on the job, huh?"

"Fifteen fucking dollars," Danny says quietly as he pushes the headphones back in place, and he steals a handful because he pays taxes too.

________

By midnight the jerk's asleep. "I'm hearing snoring," Steve says. "And it's not you."

"That's because I do not snore," Danny says evenly, not even bothering to get riled, picking up the remote to turn down the volume on game six of the Stanley Cup (c. 2003, sports channel twenty-six). He picks up his phone and dials. "Chin, hey. MacGyver says we've got snoring."

"Copy that."

"Is it Kono, or . . ."

"Hey now. Ali'I wahine can saw, no joke, but right now it's our guy in 805."

"All right, you got this?"

"We got this. Catch some shut-eye, brah. And I do mean shut-eye."

Danny stares at the TV, admires Lagenbrunner's second goal. "Huh?"

"Just sleep."

"O-kay," Danny says, and ends the call. "Yo, Boy Scout. Time to shut it down."

Steve pulls off the headphones. "I think I'm hypnotized."

"That's good," Danny says, raising the volume on the game again.

"Seriously. What if that snoring's fake. Mind control."

Danny turns his head, eyes Steve carefully. "Really?"

Steve looks like he's considering it for a second. "Probably not," he says, getting out of bed.

"Probably not," Danny agrees, ducking and twisting his head to keep an eye on the action as Steve walks clean in front of the TV screen. "Hey, c'mon, I'm watching this."

Steve deposits the laptop on the desk, stretches and yawns, his spine cracking. "Whatever. Devils win."

"I _know_ the Devils win," Danny offers, ducking and twisting again and Steve walks back. "That's the joy of it, the beauty of it, the elegant, gorgeous, _perfection_ of it, the fact that they – "

"I'm gonna read for a while," Steve says, throwing half a dozen pillows on the floor and rooting around in his bag, coming back up with a dog-eared paperback.

"Okay," Danny says, scratching his belly. He licks his finger – stray piece of popcorn.

"You're disgusting," Steve offers, yawning again and flipping halfway through the book.

"Says you," Danny offers, and pumps his fist a little when Brodeur makes the save.

________

Danny wakes up before the alarm sounds and counts it a minor miracle. As early as it is, as little sleep as he's had, it's evidence of a compassionate universe that he isn't being roused to wakefulness by the blare of some foghorn clock radio, but rather by the shift and settling of Steve beside him.

Steve . . .

Danny opens one eye.

The bed is a big one – King sized, maybe bigger, maybe some size Danny's never heard of, the kind that would be perfect for not just a threesome, but a foursome, maybe fivesome; acres of pillowtop and sheets. And yet here he is, his nose two inches from Steve's, curled up on his side just like Steve's curled up on his. The whole fucking bed to roll around in, and the two of them are all but plastered to each other, dangerously in each other's space, and Steve's eyelashes are long and stupidly beautiful for a man who's trained to kill and whoa, right there, what is that, what is that thought?

Steve's eyes flutter open. "Huh," he says, blinking at Danny.

"Yeah. Huh," Danny says, because doesn't this explain a lot.

Steve's expression is softening, and oh, wow, that's dangerous, that's worse than the grenades, because any moment now he's going to make with the smile and – shit, there it is, Danny's so screwed, he's two inches away from Steve McGarrett and the focus of that smile. "Hold that thought," he says, and swallows when he hears his own voice, morning rough. "Hold that thought, hold it, just hold it right there . . . " And he scrambles out of bed, staggers clumsily to the bathroom, squeezes too much toothpaste on his toothbrush and jams the thing in his mouth. Only this, he realizes, brushing quickly, is a two-person job, and he is not, not, not willing to find out how Steve McGarrett tastes on the wrong side of four hours of sleep and a bag of popcorn, so he squeezes toothpaste onto Steve's brush and heads back out, thrusts it at him, gestures with it because Steve is so fucking _slow_.

"What the hell?" Steve asks, and Danny almost chokes, because that's how Steve sounds first thing in a morning, and his dick is so, so pleased to find that out.

"Teeth," Danny says around his toothbrush. "Don't make me shoot you."

Which brings out the 'you called the dog what?' face, but Steve pushes up on an elbow, accepts the brush, uses it like a regular person, which he is most decidedly not. Danny watches him, lets his eyes skitter recklessly down the length of Steve's torso to the fold of the sheets against his skin and oh, god, how did he - _this_ is what Chin was saying with the eyebrows; _this_ is what Kono meant when she talked about the bed. He stumbles back to the bathroom, spits and rinses, puts down his brush and hurries back out, almost collides with Steve who's going somewhere, and that is not okay. "Who said you could – where are you going?"

"Gotta spit," Steve says around his toothbrush, and okay, okay, that's a good point, so Danny moves, he's down with that.

He's back in bed when Steve comes out of the bathroom, and when Steve stands in the middle of the room, looking uncertain, Danny's forced to snap his fingers, gesture to Steve's side of the bed. "In," he says. "In, McGarrett," and Steve narrows his eyes but he does as he's told, gets back in bed and curls up again, right in the divot where he was five minutes before. "Okay," Danny says. "Okay, now we can – " And he reaches to touch the side of Steve's face, watches Steve's eyes close, hears him pull in a shaky breath. "We are so, so stupid," Danny whispers, and Steve opens his eyes.

"Yeah?" he says, pushing into Danny's hand a little.

"Oh, yeah, babe," Danny says, and leans in to kiss him, mint-clean and warm, a little hesitant. It's the barest brush of lips, but Danny's heart is pounding in his chest, like it's trying to communicate something, _you are fucked_ , perhaps, or a string of helpless curses. Steve hums against his mouth, and Danny feels something swoop and flutter in his belly, shivers head to toe when Steve's tongue touches his.

Ends up Steve's the pushy sort, because five seconds later he's crawling over Danny, taking charge of the kiss, turning it hot and dirty, spreading Danny out across the sheets. Danny, it turns out, has no objection to this turn of events, is really fucking glad to be able to get his hands on Steve, to sweep his hands down Steve's back and cup his ass, feel Steve jerk against him before he laughs a little, wild and breathless against Danny's mouth. He rolls his hips, and Danny's startled by the groan that pushes up out of him, arches into Steve's weight and drags his mouth along Steve's jaw, mouths at the line of his throat while Steve pants and rocks his hips and Danny's mind whites out for a beautiful second or two.

"We should – " Steve shifts like he's about to pull away, one hand on the pillow beside Danny's head for leverage.

"No, no, no, space, distance, those are not part of this morning's programming," Danny says, lifting his head to graze his teeth against Steve's ink.

Steve's hips stutter and he bites his bottom lip. "Shorts," he says, sounding strangled, all things told. "Need to – "

Danny catches up – they're wearing underwear; there should be less underwear; there should be so much less underwear. "Okay, yes, you're right, get off me, what are you – "

It's like they're two men who've never had to disrobe before, rolling apart and getting tangled in each other and the bedclothes. Danny lifts his hips, contorts himself to get the damn things off, gets a handful of his boxers mixed up with the sheets, and Steve's the one who swears and sits up, throws the sheets back so there's room to get naked at last. He manages first – unsurprising, SEAL-trained stripper that he is, thinks Danny – crawls back up over Danny on his hands and knees and settles his ass against Danny's thighs. Danny stares, hands lax against the sheets, because holy mother of all that is beautiful, Steve is ridiculous – tan and firm, muscles shifting beneath his skin as he takes himself in his hand and strokes himself gently.

" _Steve_ ," Danny manages, and Steve grins at him, makes no move to hurry things along.

"What do you want?" he asks, pushing into his own hand. Danny can see where his fingers are damp, smoothing pre-come down his shaft, and Danny's own cock twitches at the sight.

He tries to come up with a smartass quip, something appropriately uninvested, but what comes out is, "You?" and it's worth it for the way it makes Steve's eyes darken, his breath hitch.

"Yeah," Steve says, leaning in, and they're kissing again, kissing as they figure this out, the angle of their bodies, the slide of skin against skin, the rough drag of hair and muscle, the mechanics of breathing. "Fuck, Danny," Steve says against Danny's temple as they work against each other.

Danny's given up on words. They're lost somewhere with all the other things that make for sharpness and definition – everything's muddling into awareness of Steve, the smell of him, the heat of his body, the way he moves; into the pressure low in Danny's belly, the trembling in his hands, the way he cannot get close enough. "Oh, _fuck_ ," Danny manages, pressing his face against Steve's shoulder, his balls tight, shivering right on the edge, and then Steve rocks against him and Danny's coming, hips snapping up, tremors running down his thighs, hands convulsing where he's holding onto Steve for dear life. Steve follows as Danny drifts down, and it's beautiful, really, the soft, pained sound he makes, the full body shiver that runs from his body into Danny's, the damp heat between them both, the way he slumps, lax, when he's done. Danny feels his heart twist, lifts a heavy hand to run his fingers through Steve's hair, keeps touching until Steve tilts his head to look at him.

"Hi," Steve says.

Danny laughs a little. "Hi," he says back, and meets Steve in a kiss.

________

It doesn't change anything between them, and okay, if Danny's honest that makes sense – they weren't smart enough to notice they were practically married before they had sex, no point in getting wound up about it afterward. They lounge in bed a while, Danny content for far longer than Steve, who starts to twitch and fidget because he's programmed to eat up physical exertion like candy. "What, you gonna be like this, huh? I'm gonna have to work you over, tire you out, go seven rounds to get you to enjoy the afterglow?"

Steve flushes and blows out a breath, and okay, Danny files that away for future reference. "I just – I run. You know I run. I run – "

" – and you swim and you leap tall buildings, I get it, babe." Danny thumbs Steve's full bottom lip. "Tell you what. You go do whatever ridiculous iron man, ninja thing it is you need to do, and I will take the first shift listening in on the jerk next door. On the condition that you bring me back good coffee and some sort of pastry item and do not sweat on the bag, you hear me?"

Steve laughs softly. "So, like every other morning, then?"

"Pretty much." Danny folds his arms behind his head.

Steve gets up, slides out of bed, pads across the room to the bathroom. "I'm bringing you fruit too. Grace would want – "

"Do not even start on my cholesterol, Steven," Danny says as Steve wanders out of sight. "We have had this talk."

"You want me to explain to your kid why I let her Danno clog his arteries and – "

Danny smacks his forehead with his hand. "I see through this. I was not born yesterday – I am a man of many years, not to mention familiarity with your machinations. Leave my daughter out of this; do not foist off your control freak compulsions on an innocent child."

Steve pokes his head back out of the bathroom. "Foist?"

"Get a dictionary," Danny says, but he's grinning his head off, and god help him, Steve's grinning back, and they're ridiculous, okay, ridiculous. All right.


End file.
